Employee wellness programs have been recognized to increase productivity, enhance employee satisfaction, attract top candidates, and help manage claims risk. Nevertheless, successful implementation of employee wellness programs eludes many business leaders — particularly among small and midsize employers who cannot commit vast time and resources to manage these programs.
At Innovo, we’ve developed custom solutions that draw from our insight on new ways that small and midsize employers can approach wellness for competitive advantage. To support your organization’s wellness efforts, Innovo can help you implement and manage an efficient and sustainable employee wellness program. Our services include:
- Customized Wellness Program Solutions, Implementation, Education, and Support
- Wellness Program Technology Implementation and Management
Does this sound familiar?
How can we support wellness when we don’t have the staff, the budget, or the time?
Employee wellness programs for small and medium-size businesses do not have to be complex, expensive, or taxing on HR’s time and resources. Innovation in this field and technology advancements mean there are new sustainable strategies that we can help you deploy.
Innovo has embraced several smaller, effective programs emerging from established insurance carriers as well as startup tech firms. Unlike the one-size-fits-all approaches of the past, these simpler, technology-enabled programs are designed specifically for small and medium-size companies. By leveraging web-based approaches and the ability to communicate via mobile devices, many have significantly reduced the resources needed to run them. Punctuated by easy-to-achieve incentives (without heavy lifting on the employer’s part), these targeted programs are helping companies of all sizes promote a culture of wellness, team bonding, and higher productivity.
How should a company of our size define an “effective” wellness program?
Simply put, wellness programs help employees improve health behaviors and foster a work culture that supports good health practices. There are a range of approaches and investment levels that can help you achieve these goals, and it is important to find a plan that is sustainable for your organization. A program does not have to be complicated to be effective!
For basic programs, we leverage available programs from the carriers and can augment them with other wellness ideas that fit your needs. Whether it is on-site flu shots, health newsletters, or just education on how to achieve the wellness rewards in the health plan, we can assist in your efforts to spearhead a simple and straightforward wellness effort.
For expanded wellness programs, we can bring in primary care physicians, nurses, psychologists, and coaches to help members of your team who are ready to make positive personal changes. We can integrate proven technology so that employees can track their progress toward personal and program goals. And we can establish baseline health statistics and manage the wellness program with specific data-based goals.
Wellness programs sound great, but what if our employees won’t participate?
The success or failure of a wellness program rests on several factors, with the early engagement of program participants chief among them. To start programs off strong, Innovo supports leadership teams with a variety of strategies that steer higher levels of employee engagement and participation. Our team provides a personalized, on-site approach to help our clients set up their wellness program and enroll employees face-to-face.
We’ve found that great participation happens with the right incentives. Innovo advises clients on strategies ranging from low-cost gamification ideas to wellness programs that tie incentives directly to benefits plans. These incentives may include a discount on insurance premiums, paid time off, a contribution to an HSA or HRA, or a lower copay or deductible.
With our multifaceted approach, we’ve helped clients reverse previously lackluster employee participation results and put the benefits of wellness programs to work on their behalf.